Anger, frustration, stress and exhaustion. All these feelings are bottled up inside at the moment. It’s strange how a reasonable day can turn so quickly in one moment.

Listening to death metal seems like a perfect cure at the instant you feel that anger but it only adds to the adrenalin pumping through you and does nothing to calm you down.

The root of all this bad feeling? I guess the stress and exhaustion have been due to the excessively tiring week I’ve had. I didn’t have a single night in last week. Ok, admittedly my definition of a night in means going home straight from work and staying in, and doesn’t cover those cases when I pop out for a few hours.

Drive

Driving lessons have eaten up most of my spare time the past couple of weeks. Thankfully I’m now at a point where I can actually take the test and be pretty confident that I’ll pass. However, the one obstacle is the theory. Theory is bad enough when in English, but when it’s in Japanese and is also sufficiently cunning enough to include a large number of trick questions, it doesn’t make it any easier! For the preliminary licence – the one you need to actually take the actual full licence on-road – you need to get 45 out of the 50 True/False questions correct; I did a mock test today – I got 44 out of 50 – fail. I plan on taking it within the week though. I think it’s a lot more guess work, feeling and luck than actually learning some of this stuff. Some of it doesn’t make sense.

Anger

Anyway, the root of my anger and frustration? Yes, you guessed it, my brother. I decided to have some toast as I was hungry. He made a passing comment saying something like “why?”, which he then went on to clarify as asking why I hadn’t asked him if he wanted any. That in itself was annoying enough but then after I commented that there was only 1 slice left, he said that “do you think mum would do that?”, at that point a lot of offensive words went through my head. Mostly focused on the thought that I was not his mother, and also wondering how the hell we were related. I’m not the maid/chef/servant either.

There was another incident yesterday. I invited him to play tennis yesterday. He was patronising and down right rude to my friends. I could tell that he didn’t think much of them, at one point he was “dame-dana”, roughly translating to “not good enough” in terms of their character, personality etc. Incredibly prejudiced and judgemental. Asking what people did at university seems like an acceptable question, right? Not when asked in such a way as to imply that the person spent their whole time studying and was friendless. Unfortunately, our social circles overlap more than I would like, and being in the same industry does not help that, but seriously, never again am I going to invite him to anything.

Actually, whilst I’m ranting about all of this. When I decided to go to the uni I picked, I was really miffed (to put it mildly) that my brother decided to join me there. Spending my entire life trying to break free of standing in his shadow; maybe I cast a bigger shadow now, but his is shadow remains darker, thicker and more choking.

Choke

Smokers – why? I really don’t understand the “habit”/”pastime”. People say that smoking and drinking are on a par. They are wrong. Drinking does not kill those people around you. Smoking does. Drinking does not make everything smell of smoke. Smoking does. The worst thing is that a segregated restaurant in Japan means that there’s just an area for smokers but usually no barrier or separate ventilation. Ban it, dramatically increase the cost or invent something that doesn’t have any impact on everyone/everything around the smoker. Introduce anti-smoking laws. The excuse that smokers have to go outside or will loiter outside the buildings are not valid excuses. These people should be shunned and smoking along with it.

Also, the worst kind of smoker is “the casual/social” smoker. That makes no sense to me.

Then again, my youthful innocence of the past, when I believed that I’d never want to associate myself with any smokers or stop speaking to people if they did, has not stood the test of time. Do I have to learn to accept that Japan is smoking central? Can I refuse to attend an event if I know it’ll be too smoky? Can I politely say “yes” when people ask “do you mind if I smoke?”?

I need a holiday.

I finally got around to adding up my expenditure for the past few months. It was ridiculous! I started panicking over whether I would be able to continue to sustain this standard of living. First, I subtracted regular monthly costs, such as rent, phone, internet, etc from my pay. Other costs include, food, dry cleaning, hair cuts, as well as daily lunch. I think I may need to start doing my cleaning and ironing at home, eat combini-lunches and cut my hair less?

Having said that, it’s the sort of panic that is more to do with the lack of savings rather than my expenditure outstripping my income. Though, I do have to be more conscious of my spending.

The last couple of months have obviously included spending for settling in – furniture, tv, phone bill etc. I won’t be spending that much again for a while, but I do seem to end up going on spending sprees for clothes. I need to step back from this “elite” lifestyle…. or a pay raise?

The list of stuff I still want to buy:

• Nintendo DSi
• DVD/Blu-ray Player
• New laptop
• DSLR Camera
• Book case/shelves for my room

I think they’ll have to wait for a bit. Ahhh!!

Family

I met my cousins and uncle yesterday for the first time in ages. I’d met one of them last year when she came over to London but I hadn’t seen the others for over a decade. I was so worried that I wouldn’t recognise them at all. I ended up phoning them up at the station when I was pretty sure the group standing yonder was them… I was right. But yeah, my uncle hadn’t changed a bit. My cousins, I have no recollection of so it was nice to catch up with them again.

But yeah, that family drink A LOT! After dinner, we went to another bar – it was one of those places where they have labelled bottles for each customer… they had one. God, the bartender keeps topping up your drink. I can’t remember the name of the place, very secluded, quiet and regulars only kind of place. Wow, I’m hungover today.

Yesterday evening was a “leaving” do for one of the interns at work. We ended up going to Heartland for most of the night. Anyway, after an eventful night out, we had our first training with N. It was dull, repetitive and quite pointless.

Anyway, apparently I still stank of alcohol… a couple of my team mates mentioned it and I started smelling my skin – I couldn’t smell it myself. I did feel incredibly hungover though. I’m so glad I didn’t have to go to the office today! Plus, the training finished at 3pm – woooo, early holiday!

Tokyo today. London tomorrow.

The Break

I’m back from Las Vegas. I guess you knew that as I’m sure you all use Facebook. The question to ask seems to be “how was it?” or “how much did you lose/win?”. At the start of the holiday I didn’t really know why I’d decided to tag along. I wasn’t really in the frame of mind to gamble any money, nor was I excited about being across the other side of the world. Las Vegas didn’t seem like the place to unwind and relax. I still don’t think it is.

I adjusted to the strange pace of life after a couple of days and I started to enjoy my time there. After a mini blip with the jet lag and air conditioning screwing up my body for a day, I played my first whirl of slots and the Mojito Magic started. I still had my moments, the hot weather, the ice cold mojitos and the pool-side tanning, washed away my stresses.

There aren’t really many highlights to talk about; I’m not saying the trip was rubbish, far from it. I’m saying, we did some walking, talking, swimming, drinking, eating and gambling. I guess the one thing worth mentioning is the Penn and Teller show at the Rio – thoroughly entertaining. Although some of the tricks were not that impressive, it still was a nice night out.

Although there were a few frustrating moments, some minor disagreements, some frayed tempers, those moments complement the many wonderful memories of my week in Las Vegas. I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever return to that strange city but I had a great time.

O, I only lost around 20 dollars